PSF Meeting Minutes for 2005-11-8

A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation ("PSF") Board of
Directors was held over Internet Relay Chat beginning at 18:08 UTC, 8
November 2005. Stephan Deibel presided at the meeting.

1 Attendance

The following members of the Board of Directors were present at the
meeting: Tim Peters, Stephan Deibel, Andrew Kuchling, David Ascher,
and Jeremy Hylton. Kurt B. Kaiser (Treasurer), and David Goodger
(Assistant Secretary) were also in attendance. D. Goodger prepared
these minutes.

2 Minutes of Past Meetings

The October 2005 minutes were approved by a 3-0-2 vote.

3 Status of Past Action Items

The following are action items carried forward from the October 2005
meeting, as highlighted in the minutes (Section 3, Status of Past
Action Items):

Originally from September 2005, Section 4, Donor Levels:
S. Deibel will add the topic of "Donor Levels" to the
agenda of a future meeting, and may begin discussions via email
before that (carried forward).

Originally from September 2005, Section 6, Python.org Redesign:
S. Holden hopes to have a transition plan within a couple of
weeks (discussed in Python.org Redesign below).

Originally from September 2005, Section 7, Infrastructure Committee
Status Report: A. Kuchling will try to change the www.python.org
DNS in the next day or two.

Status: done.

Originally from September 2005, Section 8, Conference Committee
Status Report: A. Kuchling will send a copy of the PyCon
2006 contract to the Treasurer (carried forward).

Originally from September 2005, Section 9, Grants Committee:
M. von Löwis will verify whether Brian Zimmer's grant
invoice is the one previously discussed (i.e. a reduced amount of
work, and a reduced payment) (carried forward).

Originally from September 2005, Section 10.1, Trademarks & The .com
Domain: N. Norwitz will ask the lawyer about the
python.com domain (carried forward).

Originally from September 2005, Section 10.2, Open Source
Foundations Meeting at EuroOSCON: M. von Löwis will report about
the event to psf-board.

Section 4, Public Support Committee: S. Deibel decided not to
dissolve the PSC, but to change its membership to include
S. Holden, N. Norwitz, and D. Goodger, with himself as chair.

Status: done. No other PSC action has been taken though.

Section 5, Ubuntu Development Meeting: D. Goodger will
ask if Ubuntu wants to become a PSF sponsor or donor (carried
forward).

D. Goodger reported that he would be meeting Mark Shuttleworth for
dinner, and would ask then.

Section 5, Ubuntu Development Meeting: D. Goodger will order a
Python T-shirt for himself from CafePress.

Status: done. D. Goodger attended the community day of the
"Ubuntu Below Zero" developers conference in Montreal, which is
ongoing. He announced PyCon and distributed PyCon flyers, while
wearing his new T-shirt with the new Python logo.

K. Kaiser has discussed the CD plan with the bank, but hasn't
written it up yet.

4 Python.org Redesign

S. Holden was unable to attend but sent a report by email. Summary:

S. Holden met with Tim Parkin in person, and learned how the new
system works in detail.

The new production system now runs on Windows and Linux, allowing
webmasters to test changes locally before committing.

To do [S. Holden]:

get the new production system to run on Mac OS X;

detail which parts of the current content have been
transformed for the new system and which parts still require
conversion;

complete the documentation so that webmaster team members
can use the new system rather than the old one.

Transition strategy: intermingle new content with the old, putting
in redirects to maintain the viability of existing links for a good
long time after the equivalent old content is deleted from the site.

There has been some interest on c.l.py in seeing a public preview of
the new look-and-feel for the site. S. Holden thinks this would be
a bad idea; the new release should be a reportable event.

Tim Parkin is keen to receive the second half of Pollenation's
payment. S. Holden believes they deserve it, but indicated that the
appropriate time would be once the new site had been published.
This will help to motivate the project completion and ensure a
speedy handover to the webmaster team.

5 Open Source Foundations Meeting at EuroOSCON

M. von Löwis was unable to attend but sent a report by email.
Summary:

M. von Löwis represented the PSF at the Open Source Foundations
Meeting at EuroOSCON, on Oct. 21. The foundations spoke about their
day-to-day experience, organizational structures, long-term goals
etc. This was the second such summit (the first one was this July
at OSCON).

There was a formal agenda with points to discuss, but the
introduction of participants took all day, so the interesting
questions were discussed when encountered.

Ideas that von Löwis considered of interest for the PSF were the
handling of grants, and the discussion of trademark policies:

The Perl Foundation handles grants continuously: people can apply
at any time, through an issue tracker, for small grants. Every
three months, grants are issued in roughly the amount of donations
received, about $5000 per quarter. Occasional requests for larger
grants are deal with on a case-by-case basis.

The KDE Foundation, the Gnome Foundation, and the Mozilla
Foundation all have trademark policies. The PSF could try to
borrow ideas for our own trademark policy.

Other issues discussed:

involvement of members, and policies for membership

legal standing of the board

registering as a non-profit organization

EU funding

activities that the foundations could pay for (in particular,
writing documentation)

the Open Source Law Center

organizational structure in the various organizations

The participants agreed that the event was a worthwhile activity,
and should be repeated.

6 Funding of PyCon Attendees

S. Deibel asked if the PSF should set aside some money to fund PyCon
attendees. Last year the board didn't plan ahead and the system was
somewhat unfair. Only Facundo Batista was funded (airfare, hotel,
food) for PyConDC2005. Guido van Rossum was also funded, but his case
falls into a different category (BDFL & keynote speaker).

Last year, $2500 was allocated for Guido and $3000 at the conference
committee's discretion. The amount to allocate this year was
discussed without resolution. A. Kuchling will discuss
attendee funding with the conference committee and make a proposal to
the board.

7 Public Support Committee

D. Ascher will ask Bram Cohen (BitTorrent) about PSF
sponsorship.

8 Trademark Policy

D. Ascher brought up the PSF's trademark policy. A wide-ranging
discussion ensued without resolution. J. Hylton suggested that
D. Ascher discuss a list of general concerns and allowable uses with
Milind Shah and see what he comes up with. D. Ascher will
probably work with ActiveState's legal person on trademark policy.